4 replies to this topic

[RothmansUA]

Hi all,

Could not find any quick solution for the task that I have.
I need all the files which are installed by my IS 2009 Basic MSI installation to get the current "Date Modified" timestamp, i.e. the time of the installation and not of the file creation. (The "Date Created" can remain same as by original files)

Is there a mechanism in the Windows Installer or IS to perform such a trivial task? Or the only way is to write yet another buggy custom action?

Thanks.

[Stefan Krueger]

There's no built in functionality in Windows Installer for this purpose.

[RothmansUA]

OK, I know now that the Windows Installer uses Modified==Created eqality to determine whether the file was changed by the user for the non-versioned files.

That leads me to supiction that there is no built in way to affect the modificatino time on installation.

If I write a "touch" custom action, could this cause problems during future product upgrades? Or, as I hope, there always be a wrokaround, like having RemoveExistingProducts run before anything else in the Execute sequence?

Here is some background on my problem.
My installation installs a web server instance with static (say HTML) content files.
Client browsers who access static files via the web server cache them.
If the application is upgraded the clients don't see new versions of the HTML files since browser updates its cache only in case if the timestamp of the static file is newer than the timestamp of the cached one.
In case if somebody accesses the HTML file before installation upgrade she doesn't see the new file version in browser without clearing its cache.

[Stefan Krueger]

I guess it depends on how which dates your custom action would "touch". As long as the modified date never gets newer (more recent) than the create date, the files should be updated by Windows Installer.
In addition I recommend you create hash values for the files (InstallShield by default does this automatically for you).

[Zweitze]

Using timestamps to indicate versions was a great idea in 1985, but now we're 25 years ahead. Don't use a timestamp for this, that will include dependencies on file system, time zones etc.etc.